Chinese authorities closed a chemical plant under investigation for contaminating water supplies to 1.5 million people in the country’s east, state media said yesterday.
Biaoxin Chemical Company caused “massive” tap water pollution in Yancheng, Jiangsu Province, forcing the closure of two out of three tap water plants, Xinhua news agency said.
Water supplies were restored after a five-hour shutdown on Friday, Xinhua said.
There were no reports of immediate health problems and the Yancheng local government posted a notice yesterday on its Web site saying that drinking water was safe.
Investigators identified the pollutant as a phenol compound used to make products including air fresheners, medical ointments, cosmetics and sunscreens.
The Beijing News newspaper said hundreds of thousands of people had their water cut.
In recent years, a series of high-profile industrial accidents along China’s major rivers has disrupted water supplies to big cities, as the country’s booming economy brought more heavily polluting industries.
Local police have “controlled” the owners of the Biaoxin Chemical Company, Xinhua said, without giving further details.
The term in Chinese is vague but implies that the owners were detained.
Last year, heavy pollution turned portions of the Han River, a branch of the Yangtze, red and foamy, forcing the government to cut water supplies to as many as 200,000 people.
In 2005, in one of China’s worst cases of river pollution, carcinogenic chemicals, including benzene, spilled into the Songhua River.
The city of Harbin in Heilongjiang Province was forced to sever water supplies to 3.8 million people for five days.
The accident also strained relations with Russia, into which the poisoned waters flowed.
The country’s cities are among the world’s smoggiest and the government says its major rivers, canals and lakes are badly polluted by industrial, agricultural and household pollution, with 200 million rural inhabitants without access to safe drinking water last year.
In a market in the Chadian capital, N’Djamena, customers flock to Ache Moussa’s stall to have their long plaits smeared with a special paste in an age-old ritual. Each strand of hair, from the root to the end, is slathered in a traditional mixture of cherry seeds, cloves and chebe seeds, the most important ingredient of all. Users say the recipe makes their hair grow longer and more lustrous. Local and natural hair products are gaining popularity across Africa as people turn away from commercial cosmetics. Moussa applies the mixture and shapes the client’s locks into a gourone — a traditional hairstyle consisting of
The US yesterday wrapped up its first multidomain exercise with Japan and South Korea in the East China Sea, a step forward in Washington’s efforts to enhance and lock in its security partnerships with key Asian allies in the face of growing threats from North Korea and China. The three-day Freedom Edge increased the sophistication of previous exercises with simultaneous air and naval drills geared toward improving joint ballistic-missile defense, anti-submarine warfare, surveillance and other skills and capabilities. The exercise, which is expected to expand in years to come, was also intended to improve the countries’ abilities to share missile warnings —
‘ONE FELL SWOOP’: Overturning a landmark ruling that said judges should defer to experts would ‘cause a massive shock to the legal system,’ a dissenting opinion said Prosecutors overstepped in charging Jan. 6, 2021, rioters with obstruction for trying to prevent certification of the 2020 presidential election, the US Supreme Court said on Friday, throwing hundreds of cases into doubt, while another controversial ruling struck down 40 years of legal precedent on federal agencies’ ability to regulate critical issues. The matter was brought to the court through an appeal by former police officer Joseph Fischer, a supporter of former US president Donald Trump who entered the Capitol with hundreds of others in 2021. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts said prosecutors’ interpretation of the law would “criminalize
‘APOCALYPTIC : An UN official said that Lebanon was ‘the flashpoint beyond all flashpoints,’ and a conflict that involved it would draw in Syria and other nations Israel on Wednesday said that it does not want war in Lebanon, but could send its neighbor “back to the Stone Age.” The border between the two countries has seen daily exchanges of fire between Israeli forces and Hezbollah militants since the attack on Israel by Hezbollah’s ally Hamas on Oct. 7 last year, which triggered the war in Gaza. Fears those exchanges could escalate have grown in the past few weeks as cross-border attacks intensified and after Israel revealed it had approved plans for a Lebanon offensive, prompting new threats from Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah. Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant said